


Declaration of War

by jiemba



Series: Sanvers Week 2017 [1]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Past Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Past Sexual Assault, Sanvers Week, Sexual Assault, non con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-18 20:18:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11298099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jiemba/pseuds/jiemba
Summary: After interrogating Rick Malverne, Maggie is reminded of an old trauma and struggles with how to tell Alex.





	Declaration of War

**Author's Note:**

> Sanvers week day 1 prompt: intimacy

She didn’t want to scare her.    
  
So when they’d first started dating, she’d held Alex’s hand in public with all the confidence she could scrape together, smiling and laughing with her like they were soon to own the city.  
  
She’d tug Alex along when she heard wolf whistles, the catcalls of “Hey ladies, I like girls too, can I join?” She’d walk a little faster, didn’t dare stop, didn’t argue, didn’t antagonise, because it wasn’t just about her anymore, and she needed to get Alex behind a locked door, she needed to get her home _now_ , because she wouldn’t be able to breathe again until she did.  
  
She’d take her out again another day, a better day, and smile like their mere existence wasn’t dangerous. Smile so Alex’s world would stay shiny, so she’d never notice how _he_ crowded them in ever street, even if it was empty but for them. How scraps of his skin festered beneath Maggie’s fingernails when she held her hand.  
  
She didn’t want to scare her. She wanted it to be better for her.  
  
But some nights, when they kissed in the doorway of her apartment, Alex tasted like cheap beer and dynamite. And Maggie wished that she’d liked it, but this thing between them felt to her like it was all white heat and no fire escape, and she may just burn alive in there. She’d let Alex tug her inside anyway. Thought she may as well let Alex fuck her till she came to the realisation that she should never have wasted her time on a liar.  
  
No one’s as beautiful as your idea of them. The sooner Alex figured that out, the better.

* * *

 

Nowadays, she almost never thinks about it.  
  
On good nights, Alex’s lips are hers – even with the lights off, Maggie can tell that they’re hers – and her touch almost makes her forget he ever existed. On bad nights, her kisses are enough to bring him clawing his way out of her mouth, her fingers unplucking buttons on her shirt like they’re stitches.  
  
Either way, it overwhelms Maggie. It’s been too long since she’s let herself feel a thing. And all these years later, even with Alex, she’s still learning to tell hugs from bear traps.  
  
But interrogating Rick Malverne had rubberbanded her straight back to _that_ room – and even with Alex back now, even with Alex safe now, Maggie’s never quite left.  
  
Because when she was questioning him, Maggie had been all too aware that she was sitting before a snake. She’d had too much experience with straight white men who resented that she ‘played for the other team’ to know exactly what he was capable of. Had too many of them see her queerness as nothing but a denial of their sexual access to her. A denial of their right.  
  
They’d tell her that she’d like it if she tried it. That she only thought she was gay because she hadn’t fucked _them_ yet.  
  
Too-hot breath on her neck, arms pinning her to a bar, while they murmured _You’re too pretty to be a lesbian, you know. What a waste_.  
  
Hands up her shirt while they said, _It’s OK baby, I can change your mind_.  
  
Beer bottles hurled across the street while they growled, _Hey, bring your little girlfriend over here, I’ll fuck you both straight_.  
  
They seemed to find her everywhere. In Blue Springs. In her college town. In Gotham. In National City. And now, it seemed, they’d started coming for Alex.  
  
No. No. She wanted it to be better for her.  
  
Better than being just a kid, in a nightclub bathroom with a hand over her mouth, eyes wide, a grown man’s heavy body pinning her to a stall wall.  
  
But Rick had pulled Maggie straight back there, dragged her by his teeth, and just like that, she’s asking the DEO medbay staff if they’ve thought to include a rape kit in Alex’s workup when she’s rescued, throwing up in relief when it comes back negative.  
  
Just like that, she starts feeling him again. The splinters of his sweat in her skin, the slick graze of his tongue on her neck, the bruising grip on her wrists she can’t break free from.  
  
Just like that, she doesn’t care that her body is the house she grew up in. She wants kick in the windows and paint the mirrors black, knocking down the walls until it’s so battered that no one ever thinks of breaking in again just to see what it’s like from the inside.  
  
Just like that, she can’t breathe in elevator rides with Winn or James. Because on days like this, all of their respect will never make them good men - just unclenched fists.  
  
It’s J’onn who notices. He hears her screaming mind from down the corridor, hears _his_ voice telling her to _keep your fucking mouth shut or I’ll show you how to use it_ , and has to close his eyes, unable to bear it. Once Maggie’s thoughts are a little quieter, he guides her to one of the offices with the glass walls, so he can shut the door without her feeling unsafe, and immediately, she senses that he heard her. That he heard everything.  
  
“Please,” she mutters, barely above a whisper. “Alex doesn’t know.”  
  
“It’s not my place to say,” he agrees. Sighing, he uncrosses his arms, tries to make his posture less threatening, feeling the edge of her fear in the room like a baseline of caterwauls. “Maggie, I don’t know what it’s like to go through what happened to you. But I do know what it’s like to not be able to trust your own mind. To have it pull you back to a place you never want to be ever again. So if you ever need to take some time collect yourself at work, or you want to talk, just ask, Detective.”  
  
Maggie nods, thanks him, but all he hears are her thoughts howling.  
  
When they leave the office, he lets her take the elevator and walks past her, without a word, to the stairs.  
  
But even weeks after Alex returns home, Maggie fears that it will never be just the two of them in their bed – always three. That his cheap beer taste will always douse the dynamite in her, even when she’s been sober for days. Because now Alex’s hand in her hair feels like being pushed over a ledge, like scrambling for tangles of vines on a cliff side and coming up empty-handed, and she’s somewhere else now, in a tiled room that smells of piss and Jäger and sweat, and there’s a hand around her throat, and her breath hitches, and she shakes, and she’s pushing Alex away from her.  
  
“Maggie? Maggie, what’s wrong?”  
  
“I’m fine,” she tells Alex, eyes unfocused, letting her hands feel the softness of her skin, the length of her hair. _Yes. Yes. Come back now._  
  
“Maggie, you’re shaking.”  
  
“I’m fine,” she repeats, kissing her hard, kissing her desperate. “I’m OK.”  
  
_I’m safe_ , she says in her mind, like her first therapist taught her to, when she finally forced herself to go. _I’m safe and I’m with Alex. I’m in her apartment. I can smell the fireplace, and this couch is grey, and there’s no music, no guys outside at the bar laughing too damn loudly._  
  
_He can’t touch me. He’s not here._  
  
But he is. He is, he is, he is. Like a shark in an estuary, baring teeth.  
  
And maybe, Alex can tell. Because her hands are too hesitant, too gentle, far more tender than anything Maggie’s ever felt she deserved. Maggie kisses her harder, takes her love’s face in her hands. “ _Please_ ,” she whispers against Alex’s mouth, her eyelids like cracking levees.  
  
“I’m here, Maggie,” Alex replies, mistaking the tremble in her hands for worry. “It’s over. I’m home now.”  
  
Maggie’s next breath comes out in a whimper, and she’s weeping now, her shaking hands praying their way down Alex’s body underneath her in a desperate need to ground herself. “Please, Alex. I need to feel you. Please. Please.”  
  
And thank God, Alex lets her, Alex loves her, and her touch is so solid, so assertive as they make love, the woman’s heartbeat drumming down into her bones with every kiss.  
  
When Alex finally falls asleep, Maggie finds herself sitting against the window in the living room, watching the lights over the city. She lets her forehead rest against the cool glass, her breath fogging it slightly.  
  
The nights are too fucking starless here. Nothing like home. It’s almost like the world has been flipped – below her, the stars, above her, the concrete.  
  
But the windows help. The room in her head has none. Just too many hands, and one exit cut off by a locked door.  
  
For the first time in years, she wonders if he even remembers her - if he ever gets restless after midnight remembering the taste of her skin. He probably doesn’t think of her at all. But soon enough her heart is scrambling in her chest, so loud it may even wake Kara across the city, and she rubs her palm over her neck again, again, to show herself that there’s nothing there.  
  
She wants to tell Alex. But then she remembers lazy mornings in bed when her beautiful nerd is doodling equations on the inside of her forearm,  and nights at the pinball bar when they’re swaying half-drunk to bands they never remember the names of in the morning, and thinks, _she’s never going to hold me like that again_.  
  
Because maybe, if she tells her about him, Alex will start finding his fingerprints on the insides of her thighs, all teardrops and hurricanes, and never forgive her for it.  
  
Alex deserves a woman who can love her in even numbers – four hands, two bodies, no separations – and maybe there’ll never be just the two of them in this bed. Maybe she was never Alex’s to take.  
  
If she ever were to tell Alex all this, she could do it after midnight, whispering it into the nape of her neck as she was falling asleep. Softly enough that she could pretend she never heard.  
  
Maggie looks over to where she’s is sleeping, slowly stretching across the mattress as if she’s looking for her, and realises that the fear will hold her forever if she lets it.  
  
Alex doesn’t deserve to live out this love in the belly of a vulture. He doesn’t deserve the taste of her.  
  
And Maggie - she’ll be damned if she lets him take another fucking thing.  
  
So she releases a shaky breath and pads over to the bed, trying to settle in as quietly as she can, but Alex stirs, blinking slowly. “Maggie? Why are you up?”  
  
“It’s fine, babe, go back to sleep.”  
  
Alex squints, sits up. “You’re crying.”  
  
“No, I just…” she starts, but Alex is right, and she hastily wipes her eyes.  
  
“Maggie,” Alex breathes. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. But I know you’ve been taking it hard, since I’ve been back.”  
  
Maggie shakes her head hard, almost flinging tears.  “You’re the one who was taken, I’m just -”  
  
“No, babe - you went through a horrible thing. It wasn’t just me, and you haven’t been talking about it. But if you’re not comfortable talking with me, I can call James, or Kara, or maybe -”  
  
“I was assaulted. In college.”  
  
Whatever Alex was expecting to hear, it clearly wasn’t that. But Maggie sees it, the moment of recognition, when Alex feels the truth clamp its teeth around her lungs. “What?”  
  
“I’m fine, I just… Interviewing Rick - the things he said about you, the way he resented you for being a lesbian… It just reminded me of it all, and now I can’t stop thinking about it. But I’m being stupid, it was years ago, and I’m fine. I was lucky, some girls heard me crying and came in before he could…He didn’t do _everything_ , he just…”  
  
“He _hurt_ you.”  
  
“Not nearly as bad as what happens to some people. It doesn’t matter -”  
  
“No, god, Maggie… It matters. And whatever he did or didn’t do, it was still a sexual assault. It was a trauma. These things, they stay with you.”  
  
“But you’re the one who was hurt, you have enough to deal with right now. Just forget it, forget I said anyt-”  
  
“No. It was real. You’re real. Whatever you’re feeling is real,” Alex weeps, and Maggie wants to break at the echo of her words. Alex is shaking now, almost as hard as Maggie, shifting in bed to face her fully. “God, I’m so sorry that happened to you. Is it… What can I do?”  
  
Maggie looks away, tugging at threads on the blanket. “You’ve done it. You listened to me. I…” She takes a moment to breathe, steadies  herself. “I’ve never really told a girl that before.”  
  
“Hey…” Alex murmurs, torn between wanting to help Maggie heal and wanting to burn the world down. She wasn’t sure what to do with her hands. “I’m glad told me. And we can talk about it anytime you want, OK? Or not. It’s up to you. Can I… Is it OK if I hold you?”  
  
Maggie’s lip trembles as she nods fast, eyes red, and Alex carefully draws her in, lays her down, shuddering at the unrelenting tremors of her love’s skin. “You’re so beautiful, darling,” Alex whispers into her hair. “I wish I could take all this away from you. I love you so much.”  
  
“I love you too,” Maggie chokes. She curls into Alex’s body, nails digging a little into Alex’s clothes, mumbles “Tighter,” and Alex complies.  
  
Because she needs Alex to hold onto her tighter than he does.  
  
It’s not an admission of guilt. It’s a declaration of war.  
  
Because there’s not enough room for the three of them in this bed.  
  
But together, they will hold each other through the night. Together, they will outlast him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. I've been both Maggie and Alex in this story so feel free to get in touch if you need to talk some stuff out. You can also find me on tumblr @jiemba.


End file.
